Trudeau warns Trump over potential fallout from Bombardier spat

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Donald Trump on Wednesday that he would stop his nation's military from purchasing any further aircraft from Chicago based aerospace giant Boeing if the White House insisted on moving forward with its plans to enforce a 300% import tariff on Bombardier aeroplanes into the US.

The ongoing spat between Bombardier and Boeing threatened to start a trade war between the US, Canada and the UK, after the Labour Party referred to the latter as "the king of corporate welfare" after its "egregious hypocrisy" of pursing illegal-subsidies claims against Bombardier had put thousands of jobs in Northern Ireland at risk as a result.

Trudeau and Trump met at the White House on Wednesday where they discussed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which the UK had been rumoured earlier this week to be looking into joining after leaving the EU in March 2019.

The PM said he "directly" voiced his concern over the public row between the two companies and outlined his opposition to the President's anti-dumping policy.

"I highlighted to the president how we disagree vehemently with Commerce's decision to bring in countervailing and anti-dumping duties against Bombardier, that we feel this is not something that is warranted and quite frankly something that we look very negatively upon," he said.

He added that talks with Trump were "not easy".

After the US Department of Commerce ruled in favour of slapping a 219% import duty on Bombardier's C-Series jets in late September, as a result of a complaint from main rival Boeing that the firm was receiving unfair subsidies from the Canadian and UK governments, Theresa may told Boeing that it was putting future deals with Downing Street at significant risk, including its agreement to supply the Ministry of Defence with 38 Apache helicopters.

Shortly after imposing the tariff, US authorities decided to add a further 80% tax on Bombardier after Boeing claimed that the "absurdly low" price of its aircraft did not do enough to combat the subsidies Bombardier received abroad.

As a result, Trudeau told Trump that he would prevent any and all future Canadian government orders from Boeing.

"I certainly mentioned that this was a block to us making any military procurements from Boeing," he said.